shining through: how we hope in the waiting

Posted on by September 24, 2021

I took half a dozen pictures of the sunset, and the few minutes between photos made them look like half a dozen different sunsets – gold, orange, fuchsia, purple, all the blues in the world.

shining through: how we hope in the waiting

And here’s the thing I learned about sunsets that night: The stuff that makes the colors visible is there all along. The molecules and particles that make those colors are there when the sun is high, but we just don’t see them. The sun has to get lower and lower – and then drop out entirely – before we see those amazing colors.

And if you feel like your light has gone out, you don’t have any answers, you’re out of ideas, and everything is threatening to go very dark, consider this:

Everything we need is still right here. God has unexpected color and answers and joy for you in this time, and He is positioning things so you can start to see them.

You, oh children of Light, are made brighter and more beautiful for all the dirt and clouds you’ve had to shine through.

Do not fear the darkness. The world is not going to drop out from under you. He has you firmly held. The sun is going to rise again soon. And He has more color to show you then, too.

In a season when I desperately needed color, the Lord led me to Luke 1:45, a verse I didn’t have memorized. And by “the Lord led me to it” I don’t mean I happened to stumble upon the verse while I was reading the book of Luke. I mean, it was a series of only-God-could-have-done-that coincidences that He made very obvious so I couldn’t possibly ignore them, and it spoke exactly to something I had been praying about.

Here it is:

And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her from the Lord.

— Luke 1:45

You can bet I’ve memorized the verse by now. And even now, He keeps bringing it up, asking me if I’ll keep believing for big things, trusting Him more than ever, regardless of what things look like.

Will I look to the gorgeous view? Or will I focus on the dirty window between me and that view — or on the warped reflection of what’s behind me?

Now is a time to be asking God for a bigger vision, for the next dream, for a clearer picture of the calling He’s placed on your life. This is a time for looking forward, not shrinking back.

Therefore the Lord waits to be gracious to you,
    and therefore he exalts himself to show mercy to you.
For the Lord is a God of justice;
    blessed are all those who wait for him.

– Isaiah 30:18

He waits, and we wait, and He blesses us for it. And I’m noticing here that He doesn’t ask us to do anything He hasn’t done Himself. 

What if our bad news, our bombshells, our curveballs, were really good news in the long run? What if they were really for our favor, on our behalf, and resulted in a smack in the face of the enemy?

The Lord is near to the brokenhearted
and saves the crushed in spirit.
Many are the afflictions of the righteous,
but the Lord delivers him out of them all.

– Psalm 34:7, 17-19

He doesn’t have you stuck in the slow lane; you’re not stuck at all. He has you in a place of rest so He can move through you. Things are going on behind the scenes and under the surface that are in your favor, for your great joy. Just because you can’t see them yet doesn’t change the reality of their existence.

Whatever breakthrough you’ve been praying for, He hears you, He sees you, and He is working things out for your good, even (especially) when it’s hard.

And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.

– Romans 8:28

God is a healer, deliverer, and beauty bringer, and we could not contain our excitement if we fully knew what He is up to in our situations. He is moving on our behalf, bringing justice, revival, and breakthrough as we surrender to Him.

So get in the Word, and get your hopes up.

The enemy feeds on fear and lies and despair. They’re practically his only weapons and they only work if people believe them. Hope brighter, stay in the Word, pray without ceasing. Those are unbeatable weapons, and the enemy is terrified of them.

These are days for learning more, loving deeply, praying hard, trusting God, leaning into scripture, practicing grace and repentance, forgiving and pressing on, discerning the times and asking for wisdom, speaking truth in love, and pushing through in obedience to the task in front of us.

These are not days to walk recklessly, impulsively, succumbing to our own knee jerk reactions, or to the pressure or enthusiasm of those without a plumb line for truth.

These are days to remember God is so very near to us, willing to speak and counsel, to correct and comfort, to bring hope and heal.

Just like every day. But we bear better fruit in these days when we remember it.

This is an excerpt from ABIDE volume two: Hope in the Waiting. You can find it here or anywhere books are sold.

the right door: finding answers by focusing on the next right thing

Posted on by March 7, 2024

In my defense, I was distracted, and I’ve only been to the post office a handful of times in the last couple of years.

So I pulled in the parking spot – it was after hours, there were only a few people there – and got out of the car. Turned to the right, walked down the sidewalk, tried the door. It was locked.

the right door: finding answers by focusing on the next right thing

Well. It was after hours. But there was a thought in the back of my head that faintly remembered using those doors in the evening.

No matter – I walked back down the sidewalk, past my car, up to the main doors and went in. Success. Got the mail and went back to the set of main doors. Walked past the entrance door, went out the exit door, and again, something niggled in my mind.

Out on the sidewalk as I approached my car, I saw someone go in the same set of doors I’d tried just a minute earlier – and I realized I had tried the exit door, but this lady was going in the entrance door. Whoops.

It’s not just me, though; I outed Vince on social media last week for doing something similar. He dropped the girls and I off at the quilt store, and when we were done we all headed to the thrift store, where he dropped us off again. But before leaving to do his errands, he dropped off all our donations – plus the entire bag of new fabric and supplies we had just purchased.

(He went back and retrieved the items the next morning, and brought me an apple fritter to round out his apologies).

The next day I was cleaning the kitchen – nothing major, just the little, neglected areas I could see when I stopped long enough to notice them. Coffee spots on the wall behind the stove, the dirty kitchen window, and the grubby smudges on the refrigerator door where dirty hands helped themselves to what was inside.

The microwave vents were furry with grime so I pulled them off the microwave and set a pot of water on the stove to boil. Now this, friends, is a trick I know; I learned it when we were selling our old house. You bring the water to a boil, set the vent in the water, throw in a handful of baking soda, and open a window, because it will probably stink. The baking soda and water foam all the grime off the vent, and the result is magic.

By the time they were done, my black tank top was smeared with baking soda and kitchen grime and I went upstairs to change. The sun streamed in our bedroom, throwing light and color through the glass doorknobs on the closet.

I opened the door to grab a new shirt – but then closed it and looked at the light again. Moved the door back and forth, watching the color play through the glass. I had almost ignored it in my rush and distraction.

How often does He put light, color, and joy in our path, but we miss it? There are so many distractions and needs. How do we focus on what He wants us to see?

We’ve been trying to wean Kav, and even though this is our sixth rodeo and we should know what we’re doing by now, it feels harder than every other time.

We’re trying to prepare a kid to launch in a few years, and he wants almost nothing to do with moving forward.

We’re trying to release a book next month, but our distributor’s website has been glitchier than Biden’s earpiece, and it looks like we’ll have to delay the launch date.

And I don’t have any easy answers for any of those situations. I haven’t discovered any magical tricks to solve them.

(I do have an idea or two about Biden…but I digress.)

I tend to focus on the big thing ahead and forget to look at the small step right in front of me. I focus on checking the mail, and miss the correct door to getting in the post office.

In my attempts to wean little Kav, I’ve been trying to get a little space from him. But he cries. I try to get work done upstairs, and he cries. He tries to come upstairs when I’m writing, and Vin intercepts him, and he cries.

Let him come upstairs, the Lord says, so I do and he plays for a while and then wants to nurse, but I can redirect him to some toys.

I don’t have to wean him completely today. I just need to try to nurse him less right now, this afternoon.

At church, I’m sitting next to our boy who has taken more steps backward than forward lately. He is silent and I am singing. And my voice only carries only so far, but I am praying the words penetrate deep inside him. I don’t have to send a fifteen-year-old with special needs out into the world today; I just need to love him as he navigates the consequences of his choices today.

At home, on the phone, I am not able to get through to a real person to fix this website issue. So we call their parent company and find a real person, who listens and takes all my information and complaints and questions. And I don’t know if my voice will carry very far there, either – but it’s all I know to do right now.  

I’ve been distracted by the big need to wean the toddler, to launch the book and the young adult, and I’ve missed the small answers that are often right in front of me as I’m rushing along.

Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. 

– Philippians 3:12-14, ESV

I don’t have to fix everything, or clean everything, or know everything. (And friend, neither do you.) I just need to do the things I can see – and to do that in a wiser fashion, I need to slow down and ask God to give me vision to focus on the right things.

These small steps of obedience are like headlights on a dark road. We can trust that the small space of light we can see will be enough to get us where we need to go.

Let those of us who are mature think this way, and if in anything you think otherwise, God will reveal that also to you. Only let us hold true to what we have attained.

– Philippians 3:15-16, ESV

How often does He have an answer for us but we are distracted with the speed of our own thoughts, going out of our way to miss the easier solution that He put right in front of us?

So many times, I have sat at this desk feeling like I don’t have enough in me for the next post, or the next chapter, or the next book. Some days it feels like we don’t have enough for the next day. We have just enough for this moment. We don’t have meals, we just have little ingredients, like manna. But then we gather our manna in all of those moments, and eventually it starts to sort itself out into something of real substance.

And this is the exciting part, because I know He’s done this before. I have seen the fishes and loaves multiplied; I’ve watched the water turn into wine.

I’ve seen the prodigal son return.

I know the miracles God wrings from a headlight that reaches just far enough ahead, and inadequate little words on paper, and the voice that carries just a little way, when maybe no one else can hear it.

Because God hears it. And He knows how to multiply our efforts.

Back downstairs, I wiped down the glass pasta jars and Kav was right there at my pantleg, reaching up and asking for a noodle. I pulled a skinny, delicate piece of angel hair out and gave it to him, and as he took it, it immediately broke.

But he didn’t cry. He might’ve, if he’d been focusing on things the way I have been lately. But he didn’t.

Instead, he held up both pieces.

“Two!” he yelled, in triumph.

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abide: rest in the running

Posted on by February 12, 2024

February started all silver and white that morning. Ten degrees, and all the chimneys across the valley were slowly puffing their smoke toward the west while we drank our morning coffee.

I was on the couch next to Vince, listening to him try to get through to customer service as he took care of some bills. They transferred him to a “press 1 for this, press 2 for that” menu and he was caught in a loop — no matter what he pressed, it sent him back to the same place.

Somehow he found another route that asked him to speak instead of enter his request, and after saying “CUSTOMER SERVICE” first in a normal voice and then again, just for fun, like P.T. Barnum – both of which were ineffective – he started in on a particular children’s worship song that gave me a sudden desire to stab him with a pen.

“Sorry,” he said. “I’m just trying to get through this.”

“Yeah, me too,” I said, “but if you keep singing that, you won’t make it.”

So began Monday.

abide: rest in the running

And here’s a good word for those of us in the middle of a rough day – if we are walking through hardship or conflict, or willful misunderstanding, or hope deferred, or disaster and heartache, or we’re just simply irritated by loved ones before our coffee has kicked in:

Let them thank the Lord for His steadfast love,
For His wondrous works to the children of man.
For He satisfies the longing soul,
And the hungry soul He fills with good things.

– Psalm 107:8-9

And no matter what it looks like, He’s still doing. He is still satisfying the longing soul. He is still filling the hungry soul with good things. He is still doing wondrous works for His people.

On one of those rough days, I spent hours underneath a sick preschooler and his 103 temperature. He puked all over my bed before his fever finally broke, and once we got it cleaned up, we thought we were in the clear. But no, my friends, we were not in the clear, because an hour later he went for it again, violently shoving away the bucket I held for him, somehow managing to puke all over himself and the only part of the couch that was not already covered in towels.

Did I mention that day started with the geriatric cat vomiting into my hands as I tried to protect a different surface? No? Well, that happened, too. So gross.

That day, I also got to schedule fun appointments like a cat scan and physicals (because, Dorothy, we’re not in our thirties anymore) and I was looking at paperwork for a neurologist that I had already decided to put off until the following morning. Ain’t nobody got time for that on a day like this one.

Some days we’re just out of words. We’re praying without ceasing and loving the hurting and watching for good news because we know it’s here – even in sickness, even in grief, even when we know we’re walking into pain because He calls us off the couch and out of our comfort zone and into the mess. He is unchanging. He’s still the Good News, and He’s still right here with us.

It is okay to pray without words because He promises that He has words for us.

Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. And he who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.

 – Romans 8:26-27

If it came down to us having to pray with the right words, then we’ve made it about what we can fix or do or achieve, instead of what He does for us and how much we need Him. And if it’s about what we do for ourselves, then we get the glory instead of Him – and He knows we can’t handle the weight of that.

Some days we end strong. But at the end of other days I am asking God, Did I do enough?

And He responds, Is it about you doing enough, or is it about what I’m doing?

And He reminds me that trusting Him is also something we do.

At the end of the day, we can stop our striving and fretting. At the end of the week, we can let go of the things that did not get done. Write them down if you need to, and let go of them for the night. God is on the night shift, not sleeping, always working the weekends, ever on our side, watching over all the details that are trying to keep us from peace and joy. Rest makes for a more productive tomorrow. 

Even when all the intangibles look unfinished and not progressing, trusting Him while abiding does a great work – and it positions us for breakthrough, more than any doing or striving ever will.

How can we know we’re getting somewhere when we feel like we’re running in place? And, if we are getting somewhere, how do we know we’re going in the right direction?

abide: rest in the running

We abide. Because God knows we’re headed to a beautiful place, and He has wisdom for us every step of the way.

No more settling for less because we’re fighting fear and anxiety of the unknown, and no more striving for control. Because control is not power – surrender and faith are. And He brings those as we abide.

We learn that we’re stronger when we know how weak we are without Him. We go farther by slowing down in strategic, deliberate ways. We learn to breathe when we feel like we’re drowning. And we stop getting ourselves into hot water, and we create a culture of rest and refilling, instead.

We rest in the running when we prioritize His presence over our production…and somehow we find that the fruit we bear is bigger and healthier as a result.

This is an excerpt from volume 1 of ABIDE. Need a break from spinning your wheels? The ABIDE series is part devotional, part collective memoir, part coffee table book, 100% encouragement and refilling. All six books are available here.